Two Minutes
by ProcurerFaith
Summary: Repost: Matt is visited by his dead Grandmother with a challege - get Dad's attention in two minutes or die.


Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. All Digimon characters are owned by Toei and A. Hongo and such. I am making no money from this fic. It is a just-for-fun project. The only bit I own is my own characters and the way the words are put together.

**Author's Note; 24th June 2008** – Please remember, edits may not quite appear as you remember them, as I'm hashing together the beta and the original uploads. I do not plan to come back and amend this work (if I start picking holes in it, I'll never stop XD)

_**Two Minutes**_

"Yamato! Get down off that ceiling right now!" Matt was woken by the voice of his paternal grandmother. It took him a few moments to open his eyes- and then a few moments to realise that his nose was on the ceiling- and that his paternal grandmother had been dead for two years.

He did the only sensible thing to do.

He panicked.

Trying to turn his head, which seemed as heavy as lead, he tried to get a look at the owner of the voice.

"Yamato. Come here." His grandmother's voice was softer this time.

"Gr-gram'ma?" Matt stumbled. Grandma got up onto Matt's bed and jumped up a little, to grab his leg and pull him back down to the floor. Matt let her do it, too stunned to do anything else.

"But… You're dead." Matt stated, looking his grandmother in the eye as they touched down to the floor again.

"So? I'm not the only one." Grandma retorted, turning Matt on his heels by his shoulders. Matt started, dumbfounded by what he saw.

"That's my body. S-so what am I doing _here_?" Grandma could hear the nervous fear in her grandson's voice. Rubbing his shoulders, she replied,

"Have you ever heard of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, Yama-kun?"

"No." Matt replied honestly. Then his brain clicked the 'd' word.

"Sudden Adult _Death _Syndrome?!"

"Yes. It's believed to affect fit, healthy young people with no former known illnesses. In your case it'll probably be put down to epilepsy, or asthma- common misconceptions."

"But I don't have either of those things!"

"No. You don't."

Matt paused, not really understanding what she was telling him.

"You have the syndrome. You're dying. But we don't have time to discuss or explain this- we need to get your father in here now, to help you if he can. Your breathing will stop soon, and you'll have two minutes from then to get him to your body."

"You're describing this like it's a game…" Matt shook his head, still trying to come to terms with the fact that he appeared to be standing on his bedroom floor, whilst all the time he also appeared to be dying in his bed.

"It is, Yama-kun, it is. It's called 'the game of _life_'."

Matt walked forward to his body and looked at it warily.

He sure did _look _sick.

"Come on, child… There's no time to dawdle."

Grandma was already headed towards the doorway. Matt followed her quickly, only realising seconds before he walked through it that she hadn't bothered to open the door. By then it was too late to stop, and he found himself in the passageway.

Quickly, he followed his grandmother into his father's bedroom, and found him silent with sleep.

Matt kept waking until he reached his father's side, but Grandma stopped in the doorway. She turned her head to the floor.

"Aren't you gonna help me?"

"I can't. I'm only here to guide you, to tell you what to do. I can't physically help you, any more than you can physically wake him up."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked, turning back to his dad.

"Dad? Dad, wake up. You _have _to listen to me, it's really, really important…"  
"Child, you can't wake him up that way."

"Then how!?" Matt cried, sensing his body distancing from him, sensing their separation becoming deeper, more permanent.

"You have to go in through his dreams, through his subconscious and find out a way to wake him from inside." Grandma replied, her face still lowered.

"How do I do that? Dad? _Dad_!?" Matt cried, louder and more desperate. He put his hand on his father's arm and was suddenly disorientated, like he was-

"Yes. That's the only way in." Grandma confirmed his suspicions.

Matt put both hands on Dad's chest and felt discomfort for a moment, disorientation again and then-

Then he was in an office.

Dad's office.

He felt woozy for a moment, and stumbled as people passed him by. Several of the passers-by seemed to be floating on clouds, and the carpet was a rather disturbing shade of purple- but Matt didn't have time to note how bizarre his father's dream was.

"Dad! Dad, where are you!?" he yelled loudly, moving quickly from desk to desk, looking for any signs of his father.

"Dad! Daddy, you have to _help _me! Where are you?!"

"Matt?" His father's head appeared around a nearby door. "What's all this fuss about?"

"Dad! I'm in big trouble… You have to wake up and help me." Matt approached his father with some relief. He could still feel his body fading away. Dad blinked and refocused on his son.

"Don't be silly."

Matt stopped in disbelief.

"…What?"

"I'm busy, Matt. Look, come in and see all this work." Masaru ushered his son into the room and closed the door behind him. He indicated three huge piles of paperwork and a cardboard box full of more.

"I have to get all of this done by tomorrow, or the station just won't run." Masaru replied simply.

"Dad, I'm _dying_! I really need your help out there!"

"Don't be ridiculous! This is _my _dream, and I have no intentions of letting my son die in it."

"No, Dad, outside! In my room! I-I've got something wrong with me, and I'm not breathing anymore!" Matt's voice became even more desperate. As his father turned away, Matt chased him across the room.

"No, Matt. I don't have time to wake up right now."

"Why? Because your precious TV station might burn to the ground, or be destroyed? It already had that happen to it, remember? And you all rebuilt it again, and it all sorted itself out! This, me- if I get destroyed, I can't be brought back!" Matt was frantic. Seconds felt like hours as they ticked away, and his irritation at being out of his body was second to none.

"No." Dad's voice was firm.

"What do I have to do to convince you?" Matt sat down in the chair, head in his hands. His voice shook in desperation.

"Look, Matt… I'm busy." Masaru sat in the other chair and rustled some papers. He didn't look at his son.

Matt heard Grandma's voice in the distance.

"One minute, Yamato."

"Too busy for me? Again?"

Masaru didn't reply.

"You never had time for me, did you?" For a fraction of a second, Matt's attention was dragged from his ailing body, and to his eyes; which were filling with tears. Anger burned his eyes along with the tears.

"Am I not here? Are you not listening to me?!" Matt stood up and put both palms flat on the table. He stared at his father, who did not look up.

"Look, this is your dream; all fine and good. But I'm real, and I'm in _real_ danger… Don't you _have _any paternal instinct!?"

"Of course I do, just not when I'm dreaming."

"Then you have to wake up! Dad, I can't explain to you how important this is. I need your physical body to get up and help me breathe right now, and I can't get that without this part of you in it.

"_Please_, Daddy…

"_Please _help me…"

Masaru looked up, for the first time seeming to recognise the desperation in his son's voice.

"_Please…_"

"If I help you, will you leave me alone to finish this work in peace?"

"No, if you _don't _help me, I'll leave you to finish the work in peace, and I'll be at peace, too."

"Don't say that." Dad snapped his head up, finally seeming to realise an inkling as to how serious Matt was.

"Well, it's true!" Matt cried.

Again, he heard his grandmother's voice from the layer between the real and the spiritual world,

"You don't have time for a heart to heart, Yamato, you have to wake him, _now_!"

"Dad, come with me…please… Wake up and use those instincts given to you!"

Masaru put the pen he was holding in his hand back on the table.

"Matt, if I leave now, I'll never catch myself up. It'll all be-"

Matt growled and slapped him around the face- hard.

Masaru sat bolt upright in bead, sweat beading at his temples. For a moment, he breathed heavily and then wiped his forehead on his sleeve. He didn't look like he was going anywhere.

"Come on, come on… Don't you _dare_ go back to sleep…" Matt begged. He felt grandma approach behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders and rubbed them dutifully.

"It was a good try." She said.

"What do you mean?" Matt asked nervously.

"You ran out of time a few seconds ago."

There was a silence as Matt's brain tried to process this information.

"Your body won't fully let you go for another twenty-four hours or so, but…"

"No! It can't be over, just like that!"

"Son, you got a chance alone not everybody gets. Be proud that you woke him at all."

"But now… Now he's gonna find me…

"He's gonna-"

"Yes." Grandma closed her eyes tightly. After all, Masaru was her son; she would never want to see him suffer, as she had never wished to see it of her grandson.

Masaru scowled deeply, and threw back the covers of his bed.

"Oh, Dad… Dad, no, don't…" Matt walked forward, but Grandma held him back, her hands still on his shoulders.

Masaru stumbled out of his bed and made for the doorway, slipping his dressing gown from the hook of the door and putting it on, quickly.

"You can't stop him…" Grandma said, quietly. Matt pulled free of Grandma's hold.

"Dad? Dad, it didn't hurt…"

Matt followed him into his own bedroom. Not wanting to do anything to wake his son, Masaru didn't turn on the light; just walked to the bed to make sure his son was all right.

"You mustn't blame yourself, Dad… Don't… Don't…

"We tried… Both of us…"

Light shone delicately through a gap in the curtains and Dad watched for a moment as it fell across his son's face.

And it was at this moment that he realised there was a problem. Sensed it before he saw it, sensed the emptiness in the room.

"Matt? Matt, wake up…" Masaru shook Matt's physical arm. Still warm, it sent off the wrong messages to touch- it was all wrong somehow.

Masaru turned his son's face to him and noticed that the eyes were dark, and open slightly in the head. Desperate now, panic gripping his throat, he put two fingers to his son's neck to feel the pulse that would prove he was alive.

It was absent.

"No… No, no… No, this… No…_No!_" Masaru felt desperation and terror gear his legs up. He ran for the light switch and slammed his hand on it, quickly racing back to his son and tearing the covers off the bed.

"No, _NO_!" It was almost as though in his terror, he was instructing death that he couldn't take his baby away, that he couldn't separate him from his son.

Matt watched, tears in his eyes.

"Daddy, no…" eHe

He whispered.

With shaking hands, Masaru pulled Matt's body to the edge of the bed, clutched his chest and neck, brushed hair away from his face with his hand.

"No… _No_, this… This… Matt?... Matt, baby, talk to me…"

"I can't…" Matt whispered from a corner of the room.

Masaru dropped to his knees, all feeling lost from his legs and moved to his heart. He pulled the body closer, concentrating on the top half and begging, pleading with Matt not to be dead.

"Come on baby, don't… don't do this to me… Baby, _please_…"

The body was warm, but it hurt to touch it, knowing that the warmth was false, that it could not be sustained by the life it pretended to be.

"I-'m sorry…" Masaru broke into sobs and buried his face into Matt's neck; relishing the smell of his son. He drew back, placing his hand on his son's face, stroking it gently- still sobbing, still hardly able to breathe himself.

Matt turned to Grandma, who was looking away.

"I've never seen my dad cry…" Matt whispered, stunned.

"Nor have I. Not like this." Grandma's voice shook.

With a fist full of Matt's beautiful blonde hair, Masaru was massaging Matt's scalp, desperate to keep the warmth with him, desperate to remember every little detail about his child.

Finally sobbing so hard he had to fight to breathe, Masaru pulled the body off the bed and into his lap, cradling it like a small child.

"'S gone…m' baby's gone…" He was rocking wildly, trying to make his mortal body come to terms with what his immortal mind could not.

Matt finally found his ethereal legs and walked up to his father, trying to put his hands on his shoulders.

They went right through him.

"I want to touch him, tell him it's all right…" Matt wept.

"But it's not. Not for him. And it never will be again." Grandma whispered.

"Daddy… Daddy, please don't cry…" Matt sobbed finally, frustrated and confused, his arms empty when they wanted to be full. Human sensation was still part of his mind's belief, so his spirit still believed it had arms, still believed that it had a body to hug with.

"Don't be gone… d-don't be g-g-gone…" Masaru sobbed into his son's chest, every moment now even more precious before they came to take him away, before they took his son out of his arms and disallowed him access, made it so he couldn't see him anymore.

"I'm not gone Dad, I'm right here, I'm right here…" Matt was sobbing right along with his dad now, wishing he could hear and be comforted. He watched as his father stroked back loose strands of his hair, touched the clean blonde locks. He watched as he shook, broken by his grief, totally unaware of anything but the child in his arms.

"Yama-chan… it's time to go." Matt's grandmother said quietly, her tears on her face as she stoically refused to remove them.

"I don't want to go, I'm not ready! I have to stay here for my dad!" Matt yelled, tears still steaming down his face. Grandma shook her head and walked towards him. matt leapt away, closer to his father.

"Dad…don't cry, please don't cry…"

Grandma approached Matt and took his hand in a tight grip, accepting of no more refusals.

Matt's grandmotherMat"I'm sorry, Daddy…I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you…" Matt wept as his grandmother led him out of the room. He still reached out for his father, still begged for there to be some recourse.

"There will be other days, Yamato. But they will not be here." Grandma comforted as she lead Matt to a wall, where- once passed through- they disappeared and left for another plane.

Masaru's pain was left with his body- they would never between them find their balance again.

_-fini-_

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Thank you very much for reading right to the end. I know my fics aren't always easy reads! ;)


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